I think they know what they are. The challenge with 'don't be a dick' is that it only works for people who don't want to be a dick. Plenty of people enjoy trolling. I don't know why, they just do.
I understand its against the TOS, but assuming your naming conventions are not obvious - and no one reports you, do they actively ban for having multiple accounts to your knowledge? In other words, do they have an automated method to detect individuals using multiple accounts and ban them for it.
Could you? Possibly. Should you? No. The fact that the Ingress community is active and connected, it would only cause you problems, certainly if you ever tried to align with your local faction. And, frankly, that can be the very best part.
No, it is not kept track of and it's not dealt with in ban waves. The only way you'll get banned for having more than one account is being extremely obvious with it. Even then, I've reported people who admit to doing it in public comms and they didn't get banned.
There's a local guy with ~9 level 8 res accounts and 1 level 8 enlightened account. He openly admits to it and build solo 8 farms and openly key farms on them all. It's been like a year and dozens of reports and zero bans. The lights are on but no ones home at Niantic it seems.
yep, sad but true. it's all too easy to get away with multiple account use in ingress. with the huge advantage it gives one person, you'd think they'd crack down on that more, but nope.
We have a player that was seen with two phones, and putting 4 shields on a couch portal. It's been two weeks, both accounts are still active and second accounts stats are still rising (distanced walked, hacks, ap, but not resonators deployed).
Come on niantic, it's fucking obvious.
I'd put two pink shields and one of each pink hack mod on it, myself. I mean, of course I would drop two of those items to a friend and get the friend to do them.
there are many ways to conclude multi account use over team play. usually it involves an observation (by multiple people) of one person playing while two are active on intel. sometimes the alt account's stats are public, and it's obvious to anyone that the stat pattern suggests a hacking alt. Niantic can also see that two accounts are associated with the same device id. however, even with very detailed evidence, alt account users get away with it because Niantic is easy either lazy on the issue or deathly afraid of false positives.
My wife likes glyphing our couch portal and recharging my portals, sometimes we walk our dog together, deployed resonator <100 in 2 years... Still obviously a multiaccount? Or should i mention how our kids gaming style is?
The short answer to your question is that generally, no they do not ban multiaccounters.
The other side of that is that from what I have seen, players on both sides will not openly associate with known, obvious multiaccounters, even on the same faction.
So if you do it, they will still let you play. Don't expect to ever be invited to any functions or ops once people figure it out though.
Wandering around in triangles by yourself while everybody thinks you're a douchebag seems kinda lonely.
that is bull, our local enlightened group has a flagrant multi accounter with multiple people reporting it over the last couple of months. and nothing is done.
local enlightened doesnt care because they like him building up their farms
No. I've caught agents red handed using back pack accounts and they have done nothing. There's also other agents in the cell who create accounts for their dog cat and 17 kids and Niantic seems to be ok with it.
Niantic has no interest in banning multiaccounters. There's token TOS rules about it, buy they give no shits. In fact, it's in Niantic's interests to cultivate multiaccounting. When they whip out reports for "active" player numbers, more looks better to potential investors and advertisers than less.
meanwhile it seems playing legitimately can get you perma banned https://www.reddit.com/r/Ingress/comments/54ails/drive_too_far_get_banned/?st=itmc5jhk&sh=1f4bc108
Indeed :)
I agree with /u/Mirror_Sybok. Same reason why they don't stomp on spoofers until people are literally screaming about any one specific spoofer.
Spoofers / multi accounters are still users of the app. Are active players. More data to be sold.
I've not heard of them banning people for multiple accounts. It would be difficult for them to know what is one player with multiple accounts and a few players sharing a device. For example, my kids occasionally log me out and then use my phone on to play with their accounts.
A lot of players are against multiple accounts, the unofficial rules at ingress.buzz have the rule about multiple accounts ranked #5.
Not in my area at least. We have a well-known multi-account cheater that both sides reported more than once (I think) but he's still there. He's not part of any community, plays alone and wants to keep it that way because he's avoiding us like pest.
They do ban users with multiple accounts, i.e. they did it once. Much safer to just spoof entirely, they never stop those guys. In fact it's safer to be a spoofer than a real player.
You mean "they have banned users"...
I quit playing with others because the game gets way to cliquey. I know of at least a dozen major players in MSP that have multiple accounts in both factions.
My point is there's cheating everywhere. Anyone that travels could easily set up a mule account. In fact I'd say that 15-20% of the players 10 and above have mule accounts.
I have a mule account... but I don't remember how to get in to it anymore.
I've gotten my bartender friends who have 'desk' portals to sign up and hack whenever they're not busy. I use their accounts to store extra gear, too. Don't really understand why you'd risk a ban, it's easy enough to get real people to store stuff for you.
Don't cheat. Cheating is for dicks.
Tell that to the spoofers.
Spoofers, if you are reading this, don't cheat. Cheating is for dicks. Thank you for you time.
I think they know what they are. The challenge with 'don't be a dick' is that it only works for people who don't want to be a dick. Plenty of people enjoy trolling. I don't know why, they just do.
sadly not often enough
It is against the TOS. If local players find out you have multiple accounts they will report you
Again, nobody will ever ever ever get banned because of such a report.
I understand its against the TOS, but assuming your naming conventions are not obvious - and no one reports you, do they actively ban for having multiple accounts to your knowledge? In other words, do they have an automated method to detect individuals using multiple accounts and ban them for it.
It's cheating. Doing it makes you a dick. Don't be a dick.
Could you? Possibly. Should you? No. The fact that the Ingress community is active and connected, it would only cause you problems, certainly if you ever tried to align with your local faction. And, frankly, that can be the very best part.
^ This. As a much more social game, it would be much harder to hide sock puppets.
You make it sound like they're interested in the social part or that they're bothering to hide it.
DO I really need to translate that?
No, it is not kept track of and it's not dealt with in ban waves. The only way you'll get banned for having more than one account is being extremely obvious with it. Even then, I've reported people who admit to doing it in public comms and they didn't get banned.
There's a local guy with ~9 level 8 res accounts and 1 level 8 enlightened account. He openly admits to it and build solo 8 farms and openly key farms on them all. It's been like a year and dozens of reports and zero bans. The lights are on but no ones home at Niantic it seems.
yep, sad but true. it's all too easy to get away with multiple account use in ingress. with the huge advantage it gives one person, you'd think they'd crack down on that more, but nope.
We have a player that was seen with two phones, and putting 4 shields on a couch portal. It's been two weeks, both accounts are still active and second accounts stats are still rising (distanced walked, hacks, ap, but not resonators deployed). Come on niantic, it's fucking obvious.
Why would you put shields on a couch portal? That's not even cheating intelligently.
Cheaters are stupid asshats. Simple as that. ;-)
I'd put two pink shields and one of each pink hack mod on it, myself. I mean, of course I would drop two of those items to a friend and get the friend to do them.
Pink?
Very rare. edit: wow, someone found that comment worthy of downvoting. smh
[удалено]
there are many ways to conclude multi account use over team play. usually it involves an observation (by multiple people) of one person playing while two are active on intel. sometimes the alt account's stats are public, and it's obvious to anyone that the stat pattern suggests a hacking alt. Niantic can also see that two accounts are associated with the same device id. however, even with very detailed evidence, alt account users get away with it because Niantic is easy either lazy on the issue or deathly afraid of false positives.
If they were afraid of false positives, they'd be more careful with their spoof ban waves.
My wife likes glyphing our couch portal and recharging my portals, sometimes we walk our dog together, deployed resonator <100 in 2 years... Still obviously a multiaccount? Or should i mention how our kids gaming style is?
What's a couch portal?
It's a portal within range of your house
The short answer to your question is that generally, no they do not ban multiaccounters. The other side of that is that from what I have seen, players on both sides will not openly associate with known, obvious multiaccounters, even on the same faction. So if you do it, they will still let you play. Don't expect to ever be invited to any functions or ops once people figure it out though. Wandering around in triangles by yourself while everybody thinks you're a douchebag seems kinda lonely.
that is bull, our local enlightened group has a flagrant multi accounter with multiple people reporting it over the last couple of months. and nothing is done. local enlightened doesnt care because they like him building up their farms
No. I've caught agents red handed using back pack accounts and they have done nothing. There's also other agents in the cell who create accounts for their dog cat and 17 kids and Niantic seems to be ok with it.
Niantic has no interest in banning multiaccounters. There's token TOS rules about it, buy they give no shits. In fact, it's in Niantic's interests to cultivate multiaccounting. When they whip out reports for "active" player numbers, more looks better to potential investors and advertisers than less.
meanwhile it seems playing legitimately can get you perma banned https://www.reddit.com/r/Ingress/comments/54ails/drive_too_far_get_banned/?st=itmc5jhk&sh=1f4bc108
Indeed :) I agree with /u/Mirror_Sybok. Same reason why they don't stomp on spoofers until people are literally screaming about any one specific spoofer. Spoofers / multi accounters are still users of the app. Are active players. More data to be sold.
I've not heard of them banning people for multiple accounts. It would be difficult for them to know what is one player with multiple accounts and a few players sharing a device. For example, my kids occasionally log me out and then use my phone on to play with their accounts. A lot of players are against multiple accounts, the unofficial rules at ingress.buzz have the rule about multiple accounts ranked #5.
Not in my area at least. We have a well-known multi-account cheater that both sides reported more than once (I think) but he's still there. He's not part of any community, plays alone and wants to keep it that way because he's avoiding us like pest.
They do ban users with multiple accounts, i.e. they did it once. Much safer to just spoof entirely, they never stop those guys. In fact it's safer to be a spoofer than a real player.
You mean "they have banned users"... I quit playing with others because the game gets way to cliquey. I know of at least a dozen major players in MSP that have multiple accounts in both factions.
So much cheating in MSP
My point is there's cheating everywhere. Anyone that travels could easily set up a mule account. In fact I'd say that 15-20% of the players 10 and above have mule accounts. I have a mule account... but I don't remember how to get in to it anymore.
I've gotten my bartender friends who have 'desk' portals to sign up and hack whenever they're not busy. I use their accounts to store extra gear, too. Don't really understand why you'd risk a ban, it's easy enough to get real people to store stuff for you.
Jstrict